NPF Avatars: The Champion of Order

[POS Industries]

"So, can we go home now?"

"No. No, we can't," a weary voice spoke up, dispassionately, "Not yet. This... thing back there that's planning on tearing apart all of existance bit by bit is not a self-willed force. It's a monster. Your monster. You people made Raiden, designed him to behave this way, whether you intended it or not. To say that your creation went haywire because it just up and decided to is a cop out."

The lack of passion in Pedro's voice was giving way to anger. Now, some might say that it is more than unwise to take this tone with the very literal Powers That Be. Still, others would not say anything because they'd have high-tailed it out of there by now. Either way, the floodgates were open, and the gods themselves were going to get an earful, regardless of consequences.

"You want to maintain order, to maintain balance in the universe? You want to keep up the illusion of your perfect world that you created?" growled the temporarily reformed Hazel-Eyes White Capitalist.

"Then clean up your mess already."

[PyrosNine]

I CANNOT. FOR EVEN AS GREAT AS RAIDEN IS AT THIS MOMENT, HE IS STILL ON A LEVEL SO SMALL THAT IT COULD BE COMPARED TO A COCKROACH RUNNING AMONGST ANTS. IF I WERE TO GIVE HIM THIS 'SWIFT KICK TO THE HEAD' I WOULD UNDOUBTABLY SQUASH A GREAT MANY ANTS, NAMELY KILL THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU PERMANENTLY. IT WOULD ALSO MESS WITH YOUR UNIVERSE. I MAY ACCIDENTLY DESTROY IT, AND EVEN IF I DIDN'T, IT WOULD NEVER BE THE SAME.

BUT DO NOT THINK I AM UNACTING, NOR UNCARING. WHILE MY ABILITIES ARE TOO HEAVY HANDED FOR THIS, YOU ARE MY SPECIALIZED HANDS. I CANNOT RAISE YOUR POWER TO MATCH HIS WITHOUT POSSIBLY CREATING A BIGGER PROBLEM, BUT I CAN GRANT YOU A PLAN, AND SOME AID.

Golden pillars of light shone down from above, and within them could be seen a white , solid light.

TAKE THIS POWER. IT SHALL ALLOW YOU TO BE ABLE TO ATTACK THROUGH REALITY. I TRUST YOU ALREADY UNDERSTAND THAT HE CAN SIMPLY SHAPE REALITY SO THAT HE WAS NOT THERE WHEN YOU SWUNG AT HIM. HE CANNOT DO THAT TO YOU WITH THIS POWER.

Pyros kicked Ecurt into a pillar and onto the white light, and suddenly his hands and feet glowed with a white light. When Ecurt touched his weapons, they too were coated in this strange light.

"Alright pops, I see the point in this, but that doesn't quite solve our problem."

PATIENCE PYROS. DO NOT MAKE ME MINDFUL OF MY HATRED OF RED AT A TIME LIKE THIS. IF YOU CAN USE THIS POWER TO BRING RAIDEN HERE, THEN I CAN FIX HIM WITHOUT PENALTY.

"And when you say fix him you mean?"

WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?

"Damn."

NOW TAKE THIS POWER, AND GO!

[Truce]

He was glowing. He was freaking glowing. At least his hands and feat were, though he had a sneaking suspicion that if Mesden were here his soul would have probably been glowing as well. "This isn't going to give me cancer, is it?" he asked, looking at himself.

The silence that followed was very comforting. Really, it was.

Walking out of the pillar of light, still blinking, he then motioned for the others to enter. "You guys go on ahead. Someone needs to remain on this side to aid in the transfer, and unfortunately I'm the one most compatible with Pyros' magic.

"Of course, this is totally not an excuse to remain behind while the rest of you go on a suicide mission. Especially since, when you think about it, all of Pyros', Mesden's, and Raiden's relatives are up here."

[Raiden]

Mesia's blade pierced deep through his chest, the weapons of the others attacking his body as well. His face held a powerful frown.

"So much chaos here...SO MUCH CHAOS!"

His mind was beginning to split from the cries of chaos in this universe that required solution and order. So much chaos...so much...

His empty eyes of energy looked up at the group.

".....must bring Order to this place."

A single rune floated in front of him. It was a strange rune of a mystic light. It fell down slowly and touched the ground. And then...

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Raiden hovered in space. He had not risen above the planet. He had not left the planet. The planet no longer existed. There was no planet, there was no temple, and now...there was no group of NPFers.

They were all gone.

Raiden gave out a sigh as a small bit of the Chaos left his mind, his body regenerating the wounds.

[Krylo]

At exactly the moment when the unbound Raiden unleashed his power, Haeru reached out and touched her creator's hand.

The world was torn apart, ripped into atoms, everything was destroyed irrevocably, but then something happened. Everything just froze. The atomic dust stopped exactly where it was, and consciousnesses rewoke throughout it. A cloud of atoms here gained the mind of Dragonsbane, a ball of dust there Mesia's. They all reawoke, with the strange and painful sensation of having their bodies ripped into atomic dust, and spread throughout a frozen nebula.

Then time resumed, but it moved in reverse. Everything rushed back inward toward a ball of glowing runes, suddenly reforming the planet, and the bodies of all those present. Most were left disorientated and confused. They had all been killed. Even the immortals and the all powerful beings had been thrown to the winds like dust, and then brought back by some force greater than any they had ever seen.

When the runes sank away, Krylo stood in their place with a cocky grin and his proper body, that was both exactly like him, and somehow... off. Something subtle had changed about him.

"I'm sorry Raiden, but your 'chaos' is only a dream. This is a world created by creators. Even the most chaotic amongst you, even Arhra, is created in a specific manner by a sentient being. There is no disorder here. Everything is as it should be. Everything but you..."

Runes moved out without 'Krylo' ever opening his mouth or moving his hands. The God-Raiden attempted to stop them, yet they were merely deleted, erased from existence by ever more powerful runes. Every defense was rendered null, and the runes wrapped about Raiden.

"You're a bastardization. A mistake. And you aren't even all there yet. You can't stop a real creator. Let's fix things... a bit more permanently eh?"

With that the runes flashed and Raiden fell unconcious. Not the super powerful Raiden of before, but the old Raiden. The somewhat goofy god of thunder, with typical powers. However, there was no trace of the extra energy left. Even the Kurosen remained powerless.

Then 'Krylo' gestured once more, and the Kurosen relit, power returning to it, as it regained its former strength... and then Krylo passed out too.

[Dragonsbane]

Raiden was Elsewhere.

In his new form, it was easy for Dragonsbane to put him there, to mutate his rune with concentrated magic. The Balance would Not be denied.

Let him think that everything was gone, but in reality, only one thing was. Raiden would suffer for this, undoubtedly, but for now...let him be sealed in the Dark Space between Dimensions.

This was how it always was...for Villains.

Raiden was not TRULY one, and so his stay here would be short, but it would serve as an adequate time-out to teach him a lesson.

[Inbred Chocobo]

"The Kurosen, the one ultimate power. Supposedly the object that holds Raiden's full power." IC said, stepping over the fallen Raiden. "I have to thank you Krylo for saving us." IC said towards Krylo. He bent over, and picked up the Kurosen. "Raiden looks like he is back to normal guys." IC said, lifting the Kurosen over his head. "Lets go home shall we." Then a bright light emitted from the Kurosen, warping those that were at the fight back to their home.

Everyone looked around, and they saw they were back at NPF. "Someone go put that Mashirosen back, I'll take care of the Kurosen." IC said one last time to the group, then left, destined for the tower.

[Truce]

"Or, that could happen, and our coming here was pointless. Then again, most of our actions are meaningless to everybody but ourselves.

"Of course, there's still the buffet."

[PyrosNine]

"YAY! BUFFET!" So, Pyros had his friends enjoy a buffet few mortals ever would enjoy, ever, complete with delicacys that one could only dream of (because they were made by several dream gods)

As the holy Baby Back Ribs were passed about, Pyros took a deep bite. In between mouthfuls, he explained something urgent to Ecurt.

"Yan owf, Uf nopf supofed to beher. Probfee suud tank mea pfor dat."

[PhoenixFlame]

Phoenix, and Raksha-Phoenix, were both vaporized by the explosion. The Altan too, was vaporized. But it's Kurosen-Inhibitor Device was no longer needed after Krylo's latest effect. Luckily, both Phoenix and the Altan were reformed almost instantaneously, and the technomage regained her formerly lost conciousness.

"Buh... wha... what happened?" She asked, blinking and rubbing her eyes, glancing at the mech's controls. "What am I doing here?"

A terrible realization.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akasha, better known until now as "Raksha-Phoenix", because well, she had been using Phoenix to astroproject herself into this reality, had been completely vaporized, and remained that way, several bloodstains and body parts of the fey being scattered across the temple's far wall from the explosion of order.

She seemed defeated, but Akasha was none such.

A melodious chorus of laughter eminated from the bloodstain on the far wall, and from it, a shimmering form slowly reshaped itself from the various giblets and ambient NPF-reality in the area.

"Oh... Impressive..." She sighed, "You messed up my hair." running an ice-comb through her relatively mussed blue hair.

"Is it dead yet?" She asked, pointing toward Raiden.